Title: Suspended sediment concentration in Alpine rivers - annual regimes and extreme events

Contact: Amber van Hamel, amber.vanhamel@slf.ch

Description: 

This dataset accompanies the paper "Suspended sediment concentrations in Alpine rivers: from annual regimes to sub-daily extreme events" by Van Hamel et al. published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS).

Structure of this folder:

- Catchments_38.shp : Shapefile with the 38 catchments in Switzerland and Austria, including the station ID and geometry.
- Stations_38.shp : Shapefile with the 38 measurement stations in Switzerland and Austria, including the station ID and geometry.
- Catchments_38_StaticCharacteristics.csv : An overview of the static characteristics (as described in the paper) per catchment.
- Subfolder 1: Analysis_annual_regimes
	- Annual_SSC_regime_clustering_with_MSTindicators.csv : An overview of the magnitude-shape-timing indicators (MST-indicators) of the SSC annual regime per station, including the final clustering.
	- Icem_annual_regime_38catchments.csv : Annual regime of glacial melt (ice melt) per catchment, in mm/d.
	- Prec_annual_regime_38catchments.csv : Annual regimes of liquid precipitation per catchment, in mm/d.
	- Qspecific_annual_regime_38catchments.csv : Annual regimes of specific discharge per catchment, in mm/d.
	- Snom_annual_regime_38catchments.csv : Annual regimes of snowmelt per catchment, in mm/d.
	- SSC_annual_regime_38catchments.csv : Annual regimes of suspended sediment concentration per catchment, in mg/L.
- Subfolder 2: Analysis_extreme_events
	- {station_ID}_extreme_events.csv : overview of extracted extreme SSC events and their characteristics (see metadata for more details)
	- ... x 37 (one file per station)


Meta data per file:

Meta data 'Catchments_38.shp' and 'Stations_38.shp'
"station_ID" : ID of the catchment, can be used to link to the other files
"geometry" : geometry information in EPSG:3035 - ETRS89-extended / LAEA Europe

Meta data 'Catchments_38_StaticCharacteristics.csv'
Dataframe with the following columns : 
	['station_ID', 'area', 'elev_mean', 'elev_ran', 'slope_deg',
       'high_prec_freq', 'p_frac_snow', 'stream_elas', 'high_q_freq',
       'Qspecific_mean', 'tp_daily_mean', 'tp_daily_std', 'tp_hourly_mean',
       'tp_hourly_std', 'Tmean_daily_mean', 'Tmean_daily_std',
       'liqvsm_daily_mean', 'liqvsm_daily_std', 'snom_daily_mean',
       'snom_daily_std', 'icem_daily_mean', 'icem_daily_std',
       'snocov_daily_mean', 'doy_swe_zero', 'runoff_ratio', 'forest_fra',
       'glac_fra', 'urban_fra', 'geo_low_ero_fra', 'geo_med_ero_fra',
       'geo_high_ero_fra', 'sand_fra', 'org_fra', 'grav_fra', 'elon_ratio',
       'strm_dens', 'meand_ind', 'upstr_lake_perc', 'upstr_resv_perc',
       'silt_clay_fra']
Note: Please see Figure S2 and S3 in the Supporting Information that belongs to our paper for an extended explanation of all the abbreviations. 

Meta data 'Annual_SSC_regime_clustering_with_MSTindicators.csv'
"station_ID" : ID of the catchment, can be used to link to the other files
"median_SSC" : Mean daily SSC based on the annual 50th percentile of the SSC regime
"Peak1_doy" : The day of the year (doy) with the highest SSC peak
"Peak_numb" : The number of main peaks in the annual SSC regime (values between 1 and 3)
"Peak_timediff_doy" : The time difference in days between the highest peak and the second highest peak (note: only if Peak_numb >1)
"Peak_magdiff_rel" : The relative magnitude difference between the highest peak and the second highest peak (note: only if Peak_numb >1)
"SSC_cluster" : The cluster to which each station belongs (either cluster 1, 2, or 3)
Note: for more explanation about the MST-indicators and the clustering, see section 2.3 in our paper. 

Meta data for the 5 files with '{variable}_annual_regime_38catchments.csv'
Depending on the variable (Icem / Prec / Qspecific / Snom / SSC) in the title of the file, each file presents the annual regimes for all 38 catchments. 
"variable" in file name : Icem = ice melt (glacial melt) (mm/d), Prec = Precipitation (mm/d), Qspecific = area-specific discharge (mm/d), 
			Snom = snowmelt (mm/d), SSC = suspended sediment concentration (mg/L). 
"doy" : day of the year, starting from the 1st of January
"{station_ID}" : Every column represents one catchment. The ID of the catchment can be used to link to the other files.
Note: for more explanation about the annual regimes and the collection of the hydroclimatic variables, see section 2 'Methodology' in our paper. 

Meta data for the 38 files with '{station_ID}_extreme_events.csv'
Each file presents the extracted extreme SSC events per catchment. The following event characteristics are given in the columns:
"station_ID" : ID of the catchment, can be used to link to the other files
"start" : Date on which the SSC event started (dd/mm/yyyy)
"end" : Date on which the SSC event ended (dd/mm/yyyy)
"peak_time" : Date on which the SSC peak occurred (dd/mm/yyyy)
"event_doy" : Day of the year (doy) on which the SSC peak occurred (-)
"duration (h)" : Duration of the event in hours [hours]
"SSC_event_max (mg/l)" : Maximum SSC value during the event (mg/l)
"SSC_event_mean (mg/l)" : Mean SSC during the event (mg/l)
"sSSY_event (t/km2)" : Area-specific suspended sediment yield which is transported during the event (t/km2)
"P_24h_sum (mm/d)" : Mean precipitation over the catchment area during the 24 hours prior to the SSC peak (mm/d)
"Snom_24h_sum (mm/d)" : Mean snowmelt over the catchment area during the 24 hours prior to the SSC peak (mm/d)
"Icem_24h_sum (mm/d)" : Mean ice melt (glacial melt) over the catchment area during the 24 hours prior to the SSC peak (mm/d)
"P_1h_max (mm/d)" : Maximum 1-hourly precipitation averaged over the catchment area within the 24 hours prior to the SSC peak (mm/d)
"liqvsm_2d_mean (m3/m3)" : Mean liquid volumetric soil moisture in the upper soil layer during the 2 days prior to the SSC peak (m3/m3)
"snowcov_2d_mean (%)" : Mean snow cover in the catchment during the 2 days prior to the SSC peak (%)
"sSSYdevW_2d_mean (-)" : Mean weighted deviation of the sSSY from the annual regime during the 2 days prior to the SSC peak (m3/m3) (for more info on this proxy for sediment availability, see paper section 2.4.3)
"tot_water_input (mm/d)" : Sum of the precipitation, snowmelt and ice melt over the catchment area during the 24 hours prior to the SSC peak (mm/d)
"event_type" : The assigned event type (for more information on event types, see section 2.4.2 in our paper)
"sSSY_percofannual (%)" : The contribution of transported sediment yield of one event (sSSY_event) to the total annual sSSY (%)

We thank all institutions that made data available: the Swiss Federal Office of the Environment (FOEN / BAFU), the Austrian Hydrographic Service, MeteoSwiss, the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), Copernicus European Regional ReAnalysis Land (CERRA-Land), the LArge-SaMple DAta for Hydrology and Environmental Sciences for Central Europe (LamaH-CE), and CAMELS-CH (Catchment Attributes and MEteorology for Large-sample Studies – Switzerland). For a more detailed explanation of the data used and the data analyses, please read our paper.